Back in 2012, Keith Yamashita traveled to New Zealand to be a part of the Better by Design CEO Summit, an event sponsored by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise that brings together forward-thinking business leaders from around the world to share insights with the country’s top CEOs and designers.

Keith’s talk—titled “Why CEOs are the world’s best designers”—examined the role of the CEO from a completely new perspective, reframing the complex leadership position as a series of design challenges that require curiosity, vision, and creativity.

Keith joined Tim Brown (IDEO), Dr. Peter Senge (MIT), David Lawee (Google), Casey Sheahan (Patagonia), Dev Patnaik (Jump Associates), and Lorna Borenstein (formerly at eBay) for a two-day session aimed at helping New Zealand business and design leaders actively develop more innovative products and services for an increasingly global market.

The yearly conference is part of a larger initiative created by the New Zealand government to encourage systems thinking and creativity across industries as the island nation addresses complex economic, environmental, and social challenges.